


Struck from a great height

by feyrelay



Series: Genetic Heatwave [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Breathplay, Father/Son Incest, Jealousy, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, No Smut, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-27 23:38:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17776394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Tony Stark wants to be the best father he can be.(Given, well... everything.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has a playlist! Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/user/1urx036e5iqb0ioukr2bj8yih/playlist/4aTxnmgaWmdltcue7HsHpW?si=FYpmacAOQSC3Lb9MZXhj1w

It starts when Tony is teaching his son how to shave.

Peter is one of those kids who needs to be shown how to do something, first. It’s not that his boy isn’t smart – he’s a genius – but he just gets nervous from time to time, as if the other shoe is going to drop if he does something the ‘wrong’ way.

Peter had told him once that when he makes mistakes, that’s when the bad things happen. It just about broke Tony’s heart which had been busy pounding at the sound of his own unspoken thoughts made plain, made real.

The kid’s therapist had warned Tony that Peter had a thing about guilt a mile wide, that he’d expressed shock that someone like Tony Stark wanted to adopt him out of the group home only six months after he’d arrived there. He thinks Peter’s afraid that it’s an illusion, a bizarre dream, or a parallel reality from which he could be ripped at any moment.

Tony, who had seen the hole in the sky where space rent itself in its eagerness to swallow him alive, doesn’t have the fortitude to convince him otherwise. He just tries to be the best father he can be, and hopes the fear will wither. (For both of them.)

The fear is something that Peter has mostly gotten over in the two years since he’d been formally adopted, but he’s only 16. His insecurities are bound to flare up during times of stress.

Apparently, learning how to shave is stressful. (Tony wonders if he would have preferred Ben or May to teach him.)

Tony stands behind Peter and slightly to the right as they both watch each other in front of the bathroom mirror. Tony shows Peter how to mix the foamy soap even though Pete surely knows more about the chemistry of this – about the emulsifiers and surfactants that go into this process – than he does. Still, it’s about the ritual of the thing, more so than the thing itself. Tony prefers the rhythm of whipping the lather into shape versus using a pressurized shaving cream.

Tony’s learned that Peter likes those kinds of things, too. He likes repetition, precision, creation. He’s a maker, like Tony.

For that purpose, Tony has disassembled a safety razor for Peter to look at. He shows Peter the blades and the casing. He explains the angles and the force of shaving, as well as the importance of gliding over – rather than raking at – one’s skin.

He covers both his and Peter’s nose, mouth, and jaw areas with warm, damp towels, just to soften things up. Peter barely needs to shave, but better now than too late, Tony thinks, when it comes to getting Peter comfortable with a new facet to his routine.

Peter watches him as he re-assembles the razor expertly. The kid reaches for it, but Tony moves his hand away and hands Peter a brand new one, “Just in case I made a mistake putting it back together.”

“It’s not as big a deal if I get cut,” Peter argues, and his voice is muffled by the towel, which Tony removes. He puts both towels over his arm so they can use them again in a moment.

“On what planet?” Tony returns, eyebrow raising. He smooths shaving soap up over Peter’s jaw and then his own, gentle but quick. “I’m the dad and you’re the child, remember? _I_ protect _you_.”

Peter grumbles but doesn’t argue, probably because he doesn’t want to get foam in his mouth.

Tony shows him how to do short little strokes and how to gently avoid aggravating any of his acne. Peter cuts himself twice, which Tony attributes to the razor being brand new and sharp as hell. He finishes his own face quickly and then rinses his blades well, before offering Peter the worn-in razor in trade, so the rest will go easier, now that he knows it was put back together correctly.

“Isn’t that unsanitary?” Peter asks.

“No,” (Yes.), “…we’re family.”

Peter finishes and Tony helps him wipe down. He ignores the picture of Peter, in the mirror, twinning with him after letting himself be taught, after using personal care items that Tony not only purchased, but used himself, re-assembled himself, maintained himself.

He ignores the purr in his chest that says, “My boy, my boy, _my boy_.”

There’s nothing sexy about helping a pimply, wispy-jawed teenager learn how to do something he’s personally been doing for decades. It doesn’t turn him on. Peter’s a child, and Tony much prefers competent, independent adults who have already had their ‘glow-ups’, thank you very much.

But it doesn’t have to turn him on, to feel _good_.

\---

Peter turns 17 and asks for there to be no party. Large crowds are overwhelming for him. Besides, all his friends are pairing off at school and Gwen Stacy is throwing a huge back-to-school party and most everyone would rather attend that, anyway. At least, that’s what Tony has been led to believe.

Instead, Tony tries his hand at making Peter’s new favorite dish, tikka masala chicken. The rice comes out okay, and Peter downs dinner like he does pretty much all food. Tony never thought he’d be trying to make Indian food at home, but he’s done _a lot_ of things he never thought he’d do, since becoming a father.

They watch _Spongebob_ , of all things, on the couch with plates of too-big slices of birthday cake. Tony, in honor of the kid’s seventeenth, doesn’t even get mad when Peter continually pauses the streaming video to point out the meme potential of different scenes. He just laughs himself silly at his dorky, genius kid and tries not to stare at the way Peter has managed to get whipped cream up the side of his jaw and icing at the corner of his mouth.

Tony does draw the line at Peter putting his teenage-boy-smelling feet on his lap though. He has his reasons, not least of which is the way Peter seems oblivious as to how his heel presses and rubs against the head of Tony’s cock when he sits like that.

Tony nudges him off and away and jokes, “Nuh-uh. No using me as a footrest. You only get privileges _that_ special for the big birthdays. You know, 18 or 21, maybe 40.”

Peter’s voice goes shy and quiet and he murmurs, “Isn’t this a big one? 17 is the age of consent in New York. I could have sex with anybody I wanted, now.” He puts his feet back in Tony’s lap, like punctuation.

Tony tells him his feet stink and that he needs a shower if he ever wants to have sex with anyone, ever, _in this lifetime_ , just to save his sanity.

Peter laughs all the way to the bathroom and Tony fixes himself a drink.

He’s on his second when he hears the pitiful-sounding wail of, “Daddy!” echoing from the shower. Tony goes to investigate immediately; Peter only calls him that when something is wrong. Usually it’s just ‘Dad’, or occasionally when Peter is with him on business and doesn’t feel comfortable fielding questions about being adopted, ‘Mr. Stark’.

Tony enters the steaming bathroom to find Peter curled up on the floor of the shower, just out of reach of the spray. The boy is huddling with his knees to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. There’s neon orange vomit sluggishly puddling on the floor of the shower and draining away at the watery edges. He knew he fucked up the Indian.

He gets Peter out of there, making sure there’s no soap or puke clinging to his body and helps him dry off before ferrying his poor boy to bed. Peter wants to curl up on his own full-sized bed, with the Star Wars sheets, but he asks Tony if he can borrow his Iron Maiden shirt.

Tony gets it for him, anything to help, but is puzzled all the same.

Peter explains, “It has that screen-printing that goes all the way through and is always cold and sticky. It sticks to my chest and makes my heartburn feel better when I’m sick.”

He tells Peter he’ll be right back, that he’s gotta go clean out the shower, but it’s really to hide his sudden bout of emotion. When he and Pepper had split after he’d refused to remove the arc reactor, he never thought he’d have someone else that wanted to intertwine themselves in his life. He never thought he’d have someone to wear his clothes, to cook for (however badly, Jesus), to leave their mark on his life.

Additionally, even when Pep had been in the picture, he’d never thought he’d have someone that loved all the things that he does instead of merely tolerating them. He never thought he’d share lab space and AI access and a hero complex with someone else; he never thought those aspects of his personality would be drawn so firmly into the light.

Right now his son (his _son_ ; his sun, his moon, his stars) is hurting and feeling puny and needs him, and that’s all he cares about.

He’ll have to examine why it feels so damn _electric_ to be needed, later.

\---

‘Later’ comes when Peter tells him sheepishly that he’d been trying to jerk off in the shower while cutting off his own air supply and that the heat and the steam of the shower had gotten to him and he thinks he threw up because his belly had been hitching trying to breathe and the Indian hadn’t been sitting right since dinner and he’s so so so sorry, Daddy, he knows it’s not safe to do that by himself…

Jesus fuck, kiddo. ( _You’d better not do it with anyone else, either_ , he thinks.)

“It’s okay, you’re okay, I got you, you’re alright…,” is all he knows how to say back. When Peter is calm and asleep and safely across the hall, Tony spends a long time looking at the black of his ceiling, not moving or shifting or touching or thinking. (Not breathing.)

His stomach rumbles.

Maybe dinner had been too hot for him to handle, too.

\---

Peter is 18 the first time he brings someone home. Tony tries so hard not to be jealous, because Peter is an adult, and he finally had that ‘glow-up’, and he deserves to be happy. He deserves _the world_.

(But no, the world is not enough.)

Does he feel some form of attraction to his adopted son, a magnetism that he can’t explain? Yeah, he has since Peter filled out and gained an adult’s features. He’s still lithe, but not lanky. His skin is finally clear and soft and mature and Tony just wants to make sure no one who is not worthy ever touches, ever blemishes it. Tony very firmly includes himself in that statement.

(The world is not good enough for Peter.)

But, someone being ‘too good for this world’ is something people say about the dead, not the living, and Peter’s not dead, not anymore. So, Tony keeps his own counsel on what Peter is or is not too good for. (Is or is not _ready_ for.)

At least he tries, though it’s hard to sit across from Harry fuckin’ Osborn and not clench his jaw hard enough to crack a molar. However, Tony is the adult here and he thinks about how much he had _hated_ being judged for the business dealings of his own father, at that age, so he tries to give Norm’s kid a pass. (His hand is on Peter’s goddamn knee.)

They get through dinner, which is familiar Italian tonight just to be safe. It’s fine, it’s all fine. Peter is happy and laughing and Tony can tell from the high flush on his cheeks and his open smile and his sparkling eyes that he feels well and truly _seen_ , well and truly _understood_ , by this kid.

It makes a lot of sense, Tony thinks, because they do both know what it’s like to feel separate, isolated by who their fathers (adoptive or otherwise) are. They both know what it’s like to be motherless. This Harry kid is smart, not Peter-smart, but smart. Tony gets it.

Then the kid looks around at the interior of Stark Tower over dessert and then opens his mouth and says, “Oh, Peter, you get what I’m saying don’t you? About being locked away in an ivory tower instead of being allowed out in the real world?”

And Peter nods.

Tony, for his part, thinks he’s done an excellent job, thank you, at balancing the need to keep Peter safe with letting him do things like swing from skyscraper to skyscraper. He clears up the dishes and thinks of how these past few years have been, since Peter got comfortable enough after the adoption to start _questioning_ Tony, start _pushing_ him. Peter is looking at him and Osborn is quiet and Tony is snatching their plates of half-finished tiramisu as his eyes blur and he thinks Peter must have known how much Tony loves him this whole time, must have felt secure enough to risk his ire, to fucking _sass_ him the way he does and Tony can’t breathe-

He’s not like Norman Osborn, he’s _not_ -

He hasn’t kept Peter locked up; Peter could overpower him in an instant if Tony ever tried-

And Tony wouldn’t try; it was something Pepper had complained about, how he pulled people so close and so tight and built them beautiful houses in his heart that, unfortunately, had no exits, and-

Peter helps him stumble against the sink as his heart rabbits. Peter makes sure the plates settle without breaking. Peter throws the Osborn kid a look over his shoulder and only partially turns to mouth something that Tony is sure is, “Call you later.”

But their guest hesitates, murmurs back, “I thought we were gonna use Gwen’s empty loft tonight? You know?”

Tony’s heart clenches and his reactor malfunctions and Peter ends up having to help him change it out. It’s arduous, painful, intimate work. Maybe he _should_ have the surgery, just to make sure Peter never has to do this for him again.

He guesses Harry left, at some point; he probably hadn’t waited around once Peter started rearranging Tony’s chest.

Just in case the other boy is waiting in Peter’s room to get on with their planned activities, Tony sleeps on the lab couch. He locks the lab door behind him.

The earplugs. Just in case.

The record spinning on a moderate volume. Just in case.

The vodka. Just in case.

\---

Tony finds Peter with Happy, both passed out asleep against the monitoring desk, in the little room where their security feeds are. Happy knows, of course, that FRIDAY is more than capable of watching the feeds without human assistance, but he’s always said that it helps him sleep on nights when his girlfriend is busy.

Peter is parked in front of the screen that shows the lab, drooling against the desk.

Tony rouses him to a state of half-wakefulness and carries him to his room to sleep, before Happy can see him drooling and start the teasing. He pretends not to hear the crinkle of a wrapped condom in Peter’s shirt pocket, where it presses against Tony’s chest.

Peter’s room is empty when they get there, and Tony lays him down to rest.

Just a little longer.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter and Harry continue to date through Peter’s freshman and sophomore years at college, but it’s very on-again-off-again. Tony picks up Peter’s pieces every time they fight, which is often, and a few times Peter even crawls into his bed when he’s having a crisis of faith regarding his relationship.

The first time, he cries about how Harry says they are ‘casual’ and that means Harry can see other people. (“Dad, why can’t I find anyone who I don’t have to share?”)

The second time, Peter’s upset because Harry wants them to have sex and Peter doesn’t want to, had changed his mind after introducing the boy to Tony and never changed it back. (And Tony can’t even feel smug about that because Peter is hurting over it. He’s asking through his tears, “Daddy, why isn’t just spending time with me enough?”)

The third time, Peter is 21 and is about to go back for his junior year. He comes back from a fancy dinner date that Tony had helped him dress for, the poor sartorially-challenged thing. He had planned to tell Harry about his identity as Spider-Man, hoping that by being more open and honest, Harry might do the same and they could finally grow closer and move past some of the strain on their relationship.

It doesn’t happen that way. Harry had, come to find out, set the fancy dinner to break up with Peter before classes started. Apparently, and this was a direct quote, Harry wants “to start the new school year off free of dead weight”.

Tony’s about ready to make _him_ into dead weight.

The anger bleeds out of him though, at Peter’s black look. He just looks defeated, like all the fight has gone out of him, and Tony mirrors him helplessly. He just says, “What can I do, sweetheart?”

Peter is grown now, though, so he just swipes at his face. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s not a big deal, anyway; he was pushy, entitled, too casual. I’m only upset because I put so much work into it and I really thought I was getting better with all the practice.”

Tony, who had smoothed his hand up Peter’s arm soothingly, stops short at the ball of Peter’s shoulder at that last bit. He’s puzzled, and he thinks it must show in his voice when he asks, “Practicing for what?”

Peter doesn’t answer, just rolls toward Tony, upsetting the novel ( _House of Leaves_ ) that Tony had been reading. He presses his face into Tony’s shoulder and Tony decides to let it go.

(For now.)

\---

The lab. A conversation:

“Dad, do you think I should move out soon?”

It’s a heart attack, but he tries, “What, oh. Um. _I_ don’t necessarily think so, but I want you to do what _you_ want to, kiddo.”

“But, don’t you think I’m too old, at 22, to still be here with you like this?”

He pretends to think about it, and says carefully, “Not at all, Pete. Most parents have at least seventeen or eighteen years with their kid; we’ve only had eight. Plus, with all the superhero stuff, it makes sense for us both to be located centrally, and have good security, and a lab to work on the suits.”

Tony notices an odd gleam in Peter’s eyes at that -- something like triumph? -- but then it’s gone and Peter nods, slow.

Tony fills the space with, “But, I do wonder if maybe you should get your own bolthole if you want to start dating again, I don’t want you to feel like you have to spend all your free time with your old dad, or avoid bringing people home.”

Peter looks down at his hands, and Tony looks back at his own work as Peter abandons his precision tools on the workbench. There’s a heavy feeling across the back of Tony’s neck as the corner of his eye catches Peter bracing his hands against the lab table. Peter pops his neck, groaning, and it’s loud in the quiet lab.

Tony puts down the soldering pen and cracks his knuckles.

“I don’t need my own place, even on the side, to take people to. I think we’re both mature enough to have sex together in the same house, Dad. Plus, you know, you could always date too; you’re still hot.”

Tony just waves a hand and grins, dismissive but flattered.

Peter rolls his neck again and says, apropos of nothing, “I think we should do more testing, by the way, and maybe make a new spider-suit. I think now that puberty is well and truly over for me, that my powers might be a little stronger? I’m not complaining, but I’d rather run new benchmarks so that I don’t overclock the suit.”

Tony thinks about that, aching knuckles rubbing at his chin and the bristles there. “Well, I did always want to do some stuff with sensors and do a full body scan, but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I know, I saw the old experiment design last week when I was looking for my old benchmarks,” Peter says, tilting his head to the side. He adds, “I want to do some stress testing too, you know, see how hard my heart can beat, how long I can hold my breath… that kind of thing.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Tony returns, voice easy, though he’s already building the battery of tests in his mind. An important part of being safe as a superhero is knowing one’s exact limitations.

Peter holds onto the subject by his fingernails, though, continuing with, “It’s just that I think I can take a little more, now. Now that I’m an adult. You know?”

“We’ll get it figured out,” Tony reassures his son, clapping a hand to Peter’s shoulder on the way to the other side of the lab to see if he can dig out those sensors.

But Peter covers his hand with his own and stops him, turning into Tony’s arm so that it ends up across the younger man’s neck while Tony’s other hand comes up to grasp the other shoulder. “Can you help me with my neck? It’s been stiff and it’s really bothering me.”

“Sure,” Tony replies, with the word out of his mouth before he can think about it. He massages Peter’s brachial muscles and rubs at his neck, letting Peter say ‘when’. Peter jerks against Tony’s arm when he hits a tender spot and Tony can feel it against his veins when Peter’s voice box vibrates with a hum. The awkward positioning brings them far too close together, but Tony feels it when the knot of muscle finally unfurls under his fingertips and Peter goes a little limp with relief. He holds him up.

“I’m okay, just give me a second,” Peter murmurs. “I guess I’m not much used to pain anymore. Only someone just like me can really hurt me, anymore.”

“Yeah,” Tony hums back.

He drops his arms.

\---

A week later, Peter insists they start with a cardio stress test before the sensors. His reasoning is he doesn’t want to be too cold, and working up some sweat and body heat first should help with that.

How that’s translated into Tony watching as his son just about breaks their super-strength treadmill, only to get done and lay himself out, sweating and naked, on the cold metal table, he doesn’t know.

“You know you could have kept on some briefs or something,” Tony says as he steadily attaches the sensors. His one hand, at least, has no tremor.

“Could have,” Peter agrees, but doesn’t say anything else. His eyes have shut and he’s panting with the exertion of the cardio test. The shiny stainless steel of the table is losing its gleam to steam around the edges of Peter’s body as it clouds over.

Tony, because he is a goddamn human and is not a 0 on the Kinsey scale, appreciates how sexy that is. And, because he also happens to be a good fucking father, he drapes the blanket from the lab couch over Peter as soon as he’s got all the sensors on. Peter’s eyes open.

“What’d you do that for?” he asks.

“Don’t want you to get cold once that sweat starts evaporating. Shivers will throw off the sensors, with the movement. The blanket won’t; they’re not particularly weight-sensitive.”

He runs the tests and checks the results with his face close to the holo-display as Peter dresses silently, behind him. He makes them dinner and leaves Peter to do the dishes alone while he showers because it hardly matters if Peter is using all the hot water on the dishes; his shower tonight is cold.

Unfortunately, the shock of the chilly water wakes him up too much (as if he was gonna sleep anyway) and Tony ends up working in the lab for most of the night. FRIDAY has finished with the blood samples he took from Peter earlier, and he takes a look at them.

It all checks out; the spider DNA, the lack of bloodborne diseases, the type are all right.

Unfortunately, Fri has also flagged the sample for possible invalidity. He asks her why.

“Sorry boss, but I think you may have cross-contaminated Peter’s blood with some of yours. Some of the markers are too similar; do you have any open cuts that could have brushed the sample slides?”

Tony checks his hands over as a stone drops from his chest to splash and drown in his stomach. There’s nothing. Well, no cuts anyway. His tremor is back.

He prepares a brand new slide of Peter’s blood, from the second vial he had vacuum-filled earlier. Because he wears gloves this time, contamination is a virtual impossibility. He sets Fri to run her tests again on the new slide and tries to take his therapist’s advice about catastrophizing when it comes to Peter. ‘Don’t borrow trouble’ and all that.

He ends up passing out on the lab couch, under a blanket that smells slightly of sweat.

\---

Tony’s eyes are gritty when he wakes and he stays on the couch with the blanket wrapped protectively over his shoulders, and just stares at the floor for a few moments. He woke suddenly at the sound of Peter dropping his forehead harshly on one of the work tables, but it’s too familiar a sound for him to do more than blink awake at. It’s not the first time Peter’s started work in here when Tony’s been passed out on the couch, not by a long shot.

He chokes on it, though, when he does look up to see Peter peering at the blood test results with a red mark on his forehead. “What’s up, kid?”

“We-ee-ell,” Peter sing-songs slowly, “...it looks like Fri flagged the samples. Did you turn her error sensitivity way up?”

Yeah, he had, to be sure this time. He says as much, and asks why Peter is so interested. Tony scrubs a hand over his face.

“The thing is, looks like she’s flagged some of the markers for contamination from your blood, and then the rest from the Evil Eye Villain Identification Index?”

Oh, fuck. That stone in the pit of Tony’s stomach is a boulder, now. He can think of only one reason Peter’s blood might flag the EEVII.

“Do you think a villain could have injected me with something? Do you think I’ve been contaminated?” Peter asks anxiously.

Tony stands up and lets the blanket fall to the couch behind him. “I don’t think so, champ; if it were something like that, I’d think they would go for something to degrade the Spider DNA, not your human markers.”

Peter nods at that and says, “Yeah, that makes sense,” even as Tony starts trying to steer him away by the shoulders. Peter stays rooted to the spot, though. “We gotta figure this out, Dad.”

“It’s okay, son. Let’s just have breakfast first, okay? I’m really hungry.”

Peter sighs, but goes with him, thank god.

Sweet as he is, Peter ends up making chocolate chip pancakes for them both. Tony gets dressed in a sharp dress shirt, like armor, and his favorite jeans, like medicine.

He has his pancakes with a side of guilt and a helping of grief. Across from him, Peter is pale and brown-eyed and whip-smart and scientifically methodical, as he’d always been meant to be.

(Maya Hansen deserved better.)

\---

They clean up from the pancakes and Peter keeps pressing spare chocolate chips into both of their mouths like it’s still something naughty given neither of them is a child anymore. It’s fucking stressful.

Tony drips the remains of batter down his own wrist while scraping out the bowl before rinsing it and Peter grabs for his hand and makes like he’s going to lick Tony’s forearm all the way to the elbow where his cuff would cut him off and Tony has to jerk away, has to kill that childish happiness in Peter’s eyes because, because-

Peter’s his son. That’s not news.

But if Tony couldn’t save Maya from her own ambitiousness, if he’d shirked his responsibility toward her until it was far too late, until she’d already been drawn too far into a world in which he could sleep with her and give her an algorithm along with a child and then walk away with no consequences while she would have struggled to even get a goddamned grant or even a proposal heard, and it-

It rubs the wrong way up against that promise he’d made to himself in Afghanistan that he’d stop blaming the world for being the way that it was and instead devote himself to fixing things as best he could, and-

Peter is young still, better than _he’d_ been at 22 for sure, but still on the wrong side of that undefinable _moment_ that all men and women hit, if they’re lucky, where their purpose in life condenses out of thin air to drip into suddenly open eyes like the most corrosive of tears, and-

He can’t fucking deal with this right now. His eyes burn and he steps cleanly away from the sink, leaving Peter in a half-lurch that makes him stumble against the counter as Tony snatches a dishcloth to wipe his wrist as he flees.

He makes it five feet before Peter webs him from across the kitchen and Tony is forced to whip back around to face the source of his angst (the source of his joy), the object of his - apparently - genetic attraction (the object of his deepest love), his son (his son).

“I knew it was a good idea to keep a spare shooter in the junk drawer,” Peter quips, smile crooked and uncertain.

Tony mirrors the exact same smile back to him and chuckles a slightly unhinged, “Nice work, kid.”

Peter frowns, “Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he breathes, and means it. “I’m just not entirely ready to face this day, okay? Mind kept spinning last night, lots of different possibilities; it didn’t make for very good rest.”

His boy, a man now, accepts that with grace. “Okay. You know I love you, right? And you love me?” Peter asks as he uses the release on the shooter to disconnect them.

The web falls to the kitchen floor, still attached at Tony’s end.

“Always, kid.”


End file.
